


Dwindling

by daltonandes



Category: Saw (Movies)
Genre: AU, Drugs, Gen, Mini Fic, Night Terrors, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, jerking off, that AU when Adam escapes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 06:18:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4252557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daltonandes/pseuds/daltonandes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Adam lives, but with conequences. He battles panic attacks, night terrors, and not having enough cigarettes. Basically just a drabble I did one night instead of sleeping. It's a real kick in the face called reality, and the reality of what probably would happen to Adam if he lived.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dwindling

The smoke is thick, chokingly thick, floating around in rings. Adam is on his fifth cigarette for the night, and his world is starting to blur. He can’t think too much. He knows if he does think it won’t end well, not well at all.

Escaping that madman’s clutches resulted in living, but also in endless panic attacks and night terrors. Sometimes the dreams are those of still being locked away in that place, screaming for help and in hopeless agony, almost certain he can hear Lawrence outside the door, getting away to freedom. And he feels that white-hot fear he remembers so well, and then he knows he’s going to die, and that’s when Adam wakes up, in a frantic sweat on top of his sheets that probably need to be cleaned. And he cries, and cries, all throughout the rest of the hour, sometimes the rest of the night.

The night terrors aren’t as bad as the attacks. He can’t look at white tile without being reminded of the place, he can’t look at anything that reminds of the hellhole he escaped barely with his life. Human contact is hard, interaction is hard, and he swears he hasn’t touched a living being since he was grabbing Lawrence in that bathroom, gripping at his shoulders and hands so he’d stay.

That was two months ago.

And now here he was, not even living, just a vessel with a brain. He’s almost emotionless, the only time he actually feels something is when he takes a lighter to his fucking wrists, or when he’s jerking off to bad porn he doesn’t even find hot. And after finishing, even though he remembers how he used to moan, he still wants to bash his head in.

 

Five months later, it’s been seven months since his escape from Jigsaw, and weekly therapy is actually helping. His shrink is named Joanne, and she’s a nice older woman with blonde hair and sparkly eyes. Her whole appearance reminds Adam of the beach. And she wasn’t pushy at all, which was a first. Adam actually likes talking to her every week.

One day, it's a gloomy and rainy Tuesday in April. 

“How are the dreams?” Joanne asks first as she presses the timer to start the session. Adam always eyes that fucking timer and it makes him gulp every time he sees the numbers move. Nothing is going to happen, he tells himself, which doesn’t help in the slightest.

“Worse,” Adam says truthfully and lights a cigarette. There’s a non-smoking policy in the building, but somewhere in his mind he found that he didn’t care anymore, which was good. He thinks it means he's slowly gaining back his personality.

“Would you like to describe a dream you have to me, Adam?”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea."

“Are they reoccurring or different every night?”

“A mix of both.”

Joanne nods without a word and scribbles something Adam really can’t make out on her yellow notepad. Goddamn shrinks and their yellow notepads.

“Your evaluations are back,” she tells him.

Adam looks at her and blinks, waves a hand. “And?”

“Well, we’re diagnosing you with PTSD and mild paranoia. Treatments are fairly simple.”

“What, pills?”

Joanne starts to nod and stops when Adam shakes his head.

“Spend the rest of my life on goddamn pills?” he says. “Well, fuck me. At least you can prescribe me a sleeping med so I can get through the night without that feeling of  
impending doom.”

“We are working on it, Adam,” Joanne says and Adam sinks lower in his chair.

“Are you? ‘Cause right now I’m feeling pretty fucking alone in this.”

Joanne adjusts her wire-rimmed glasses and pokes her lip with the end of her pen. “PTSD is not as bad as people make it out to be. You can get better with more therapy and anti-anxiety medication.”

“Lovely.”

“You have this disorder because you survived a kidnapping. Lots of victims have it worse, Adam.”

“Oh, huh? I should’ve known that was coming,” Adam rolls his eyes.

Joanne shakes her head. “I’m just saying. Don’t you think you learned something from this?”

“Yeah,” Adam laughs sarcastically. “I did. I learned that people are shit and they break promises like they’re nothing.”

Joanne’s eyes fall back down to the notepad. “I assume you’re referring to Dr. Gordon?”

“He left me to die!” Adam is suddenly yelling, though Joanne barely flinches. “He said he’d bring back help and he fucking lied to me, though I don’t blame him since I lied to him  
for a whole six fucking hours.”

“And I know you hate yourself for that.”

“I wanna kill myself because of that.”

Joanne visibly swallows. “Adam. You’re lashing out, I get it. But I want you to feel better and to do that, you need to take the pills and keep coming here.”

Adam gives up. He covers his face and puts out his half-smoked cigarette, even though the session has 47 minutes left to it.

“Fine."

 

He gets prescribed Valium and Prozac, and according to the facts he reads about them both he should either be happier and feel freer or want to kill himself even more. He thinks, fuck it. Nothing could possibly get worse than this.

The nights are the same, even though he’s tried fifty ways to sleep better including chamomile tea, working out, jerking off four times in a row, smoking weed, hot baths, and on some nights he tries all five in a row.

One night he gets a full eight hours and he wonders what he did different. He gets up and brews some cheap coffee while pealing a banana.

That’s when he finds the note slipped underneath his door along with the rest of his mail, and it makes his blood run cold.

It says only two words in black ink: 

Hello, Adam.

It couldn’t be him. There was no way in hell that Jigsaw found him again, and even if he had, why was he torturing him again? Did this sick fuck get off by giving people fucking panic attacks?

Adam tells himself it’s a joke, some sick prank, or maybe even a hallucination and he's really losing it. He tries to let it go for the rest of the day. He goes outside and takes a walk. He orders some food. He watches reruns of Ren and Stimpy and Angry Beavers. 

But in the back of his mind, the note is there.

 

Adam’s daily panic attacks are made mild by the drugs. He still gets them, but they’re almost not as severe. Maybe it’s the placebo effect, but Adam isn't complaining.  
He finally gets his hands on a sleeping med, and it helps for a little while. The night terrors aren’t as vivid, they’re more milky and blurry now, but still there nonetheless. He wishes they’d just go the fuck away entirely.

Day after day passes, and he sees Joanne on a regular basis unless he forgets, which isn’t all the time but he’s actually caught himself jerking off while supposed to be at an appointment. Like he’s going to tell Joanne that.

 

Adam’s not just alone, he’s lonely. He still has some friends and he’s made some new ones through therapy, but even that can’t fill the void.

The drugs are helping, slowly and casually. And he’s a lot better than he was two months prior his escape. But nothing can erase those hours of pain and terror he endured, not even the Valium he chokes down every day with breakfast.

His life, he knows, is more than the sleepless nights and fits of panic and terror, more than all the white and blue pills, and more than every cigarette, every cup of coffee, every vodka bottle, and every jerk-off session he made to take his mind off everything. 

No, one day, Adam is going to be better. And on that day, he’s no longer going to feel like he’s dwindling away.


End file.
